


Damned If You Do

by the_moonmoth



Series: The Ocean Echoing [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 00:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4767272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Geez, Spike, you know everything about everyone but goblins are a mystery to you?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damned If You Do

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of The Ocean Echoing series (click on the series link above to see previous part). Big glompy beta thanks to Bewildered and Rahirah, who are awesomeness personified.

This was how it went down with Angelus.

 

* * *

 

Spike had barely got back from his trip to try and track down the little white witch when his visitors came a-calling. He’d only actually seen and spoken to Buffy the once since his return, which had been awkward and painfully distant in a way he was shocked to discover he had somehow become unaccustomed to, and the crypt was still woefully lacking in the electrical conveniences department – cold blood, never a fun time – so he wasn’t exactly in the best mood for company. Still, company seemed to have sought him out.

 

This version of Buffy knocked – something he wasn’t sure he’d be getting over any time soon – but she didn’t seem to have twigged yet about vamp hearing (he added it to his mental list of Things to Bring Up with Rupert). There were two of them out there, Buffy and… oh, _brilliant_. The Blessed Forehead had arrived in Sunnydale and apparently made his introductions.

 

“He’s a friend of Giles’s,” Buffy was saying. “And mine, I guess.” He _heard_ the frown. “But anyway, he’s totally trustworthy.”

 

Spike, having sauntered over, took that moment to swing the door wide on a dramatic arc, and smirked at the twin startled-deer expressions.

 

“Angelus,” he greeted magnanimously.

 

“ _Spike?_ ”

 

Buffy looked between them, her glossy pink lips forming a perfect ‘O’ of surprise.

 

“You guys know each other?”

 

*

 

Spike liked to think about it sometimes, when he was bored or drunk or feeling particularly masochistic – how that first meeting between the star-crossed lovers must have gone.

 

It would have been in a dark alley somewhere, because that was practically Angelus’s natural habitat and Spike, having lately gained some experience in the matter, just couldn’t believe that the soul would change that much about him. He’d probably even been stalking her, as any vamp would, though he’d no doubt have seen it as the prelude to the dramatic reveal.

 

(Angelus’s problem, Spike pondered tangentially, was that he had all the dramatic leanings with none of the flair to pull it off, poor bastard.)

 

He could just see Buffy giving him that look – the one that regularly stunned him with memories of Dawn – that teenaged look of being so deeply unimpressed that words failed to convey the full majesty of the unimpressedness, and she’d pop one out in that bored tone of voice that could slay a vamp’s ego at fifty paces:

 

“And you are?”

 

Angel, the wanker, he’d probably go for suave.

 

“Why, little lady, I’m a tragically burdened hero come to help you save the day.”

 

Spike was pretty sure his girl would’ve figured out the berk was a vamp right off the bat, since they’d worked on that some, over the summer.

 

“A heroic vampire?” he imagined her saying. “What, do _you_ have a soul as well?”

 

Yeah, this was a good bit. This was getting to his favourite bit, because that? That would’ve totally ruined Angelus’s shtick. Crashed. And. Burned

 

“As—as well? What do you mean, _as well_? I am unique! No other creature in existence can know the pain I know.”

 

“Uh huh.” Sometimes he liked to have her chewing gum, just so she could pop it obnoxiously right here. “So’d you fight for yours too? Is there, like, some demonic Ultimate Fighting Championship out there? Rumble in the Graveyard? Let me guess, the winner gets his soul in a little prezzie with a bow on top.”

 

(For the sake of his shiny new conscience, Spike felt it was worth noting that in telling her about his soul before Angel showed up, he hadn’t actually planned it like this. No, it was just a happy coincidence. Still, he was about to fall heart-first on his sword for her, so he figured he deserved a spot of fun.)

 

“Well, no. Actually, I was cursed,” daydream-Angelus said.

 

“ _Cursed?_ ” He loved the imagined look of outrage on her face. “You mean it was _forced_ on you against your _will?_ ”

 

“Well, uh, look. Now just wait a moment, Buffy. Um.” Picturing him descending into stuttering fooldom always gave Spike a happy. It was possible he was projecting. “Here, take this poncy necklace and, uh, witty rejoinder while I fade mysteriously into the shadows.”

 

In Spike’s version, Buffy took one look at that godawful crucifix and chucked it in the gutter. That never failed to bring a smile to his face. Sadly, that particular detail really was all in his head – he knew that because she was wearing it now.

 

*

 

“You guys know each other?”

 

When neither of them looked like moving, Spike gestured them in ostentatiously before leaning back against a sarcophagus – might as well get comfortable for the show.

 

“Angelus?” Spike asked innocently. “You want to explain or shall I?”

 

“Why do you call him that? It’s Angel,” Buffy asked at the same time Angelus exploded, rolling right over her.

 

“ _This_ is your guy? Your—your associate? Buffy, you have no idea— You can’t trust him! He’s one of the most evil, most foul—”

 

“Hey now,” Spike interceded, “No need to be like that. I keep a tidy crypt.”

 

Buffy rolled her eyes at him before turning to Bruce Banner back there.

 

“Angel, come on. I told you, he’s got a soul – just like you.”

 

“I am nothing like him,” Spike scoffed indignantly, just as Peaches gritted out, “He’s nothing like me.”

 

They frowned at each other a moment, Spike caught up in the question of what their wording said about each of them.

 

“All right then,” Angelus continued frostily, eyes never leaving Spike’s. “If you’ve got a soul, explain this. Last I heard, you and Dru—”

 

“Who’s Dru?”

 

“—were out in Eastern Europe painting the town real red, and that was just two months ago. Right before she—” His voice broke and Spike looked away, caught again for a second in that tidal wave of grief. “So explain to me how you got here so quickly, if you also had to – what? – stop at the Souls ‘R’ Us on the way over?”

 

That was some impressive sass from the old man, but suddenly Spike wasn’t in the mood for it anymore, and he definitely wasn’t in the mood for sharing his deepest—

 

“Well he’s not from this time,” Buffy explained oh so helpfully. “He comes from seven years in the future.”

 

And Spike threw his arms up in defeat. “Typical. Just bloody – _typical_! Spill all of Spike’s secrets to the one person who hates him the most. Sing me a new tune some time why don’t you, love?”

 

“What? God! You are so— It’s not like you told me this was private information.” And yeah, okay, that was true, but only because he hadn’t actually wanted to stick around for longer than necessary after she’d read that letter, what with her weird sideways looks and questions he couldn’t answer. Buffy glared a moment before her expression softened. “Besides, Angel isn’t an enemy.”

 

God, it’d started already – the light in her eyes as she said that made him want to heave, and so he’d turned his back on them before he muttered, “Not yet.”

 

* * *

 

“Did you know?” Buffy asked him a year and change later. “Damn it, Spike, did you _know_ this would happen?”

 

What could he say when they both knew the answer was yes?

 

He was a selfish bastard, the soul hadn’t cured him of that, not completely, and he was so lonely for her. How she would be. He’d thought about trying to intervene, he had. Hell, who was he kidding? He’d been obsessing about it since Angelus first stuck his thick neck out of the shadows. He’d barely slept the last month, on tenterhooks knowing it was coming and trying to convince himself of one course of action or the other, and in the end he’d taken the route he’d figured would get him _his_ Buffy, like the weak-hearted prat that he was, and spent the previous night drinking himself into oblivion while she celebrated her birthday. But _this_ Buffy, this sweet-faced girl with her rounded cheeks and sweeping lashes… she was standing there in the middle of his crypt, clutching her Claddagh ring and crying freely, so open and trusting in her anguish even now that he couldn’t find the words to defend himself around the bowling ball in his throat.

 

“I’m sorry, love,” he croaked, reaching for her, but she batted him away, big, wet eyes giving him a look that cut him in half, and his own vision warped and wobbled.

 

“ _You’re_ sorry?” she sobbed. “Spike, Angel lost his soul because of _me_. Because of what _I_ did. People are proba—probably already dead and I – I – I feel like I’m dying too.”

 

She looked as though she would have said more, but then her body seemed to crumple in on itself with grief. This time, she let him hold her, but only, he thought, because she was too wrecked to stop him.

 

*

 

The library held a quiet intensity the following evening, Buffy and Giles out on some errand and just the children scattered around. Willow sat by herself at the table paging listlessly through an oversized book and he figured that was his best bet.

 

“Hey, Spike,” she said with a flick of her eyes and that wan little smile as he approached.

 

“Red,” he greeted cautiously. “Been a couple of days. Catch me up, will you?”

 

Her look was considered and she took her time before saying, “Buffy’s really angry with you, you know.”

 

Spike blinked and looked away, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I got that memo.”

 

She just nodded. Of all of them, Willow had always been the most accepting of his self-imposed limitations. Strange to see her so beholden to authority, really, but he was getting used to it by now.

 

“Well, Angel came to the school last night,” she told him quietly, eyes downcast. “He grabbed me, and threatened all of us, and threw Buffy into a wall, but then he left. I guess he mostly just wanted to scare us?” She glanced up at him, a tic she’d developed, as though he would give her confirmation or denial. “Giles said he must have lost his soul somehow. Then it turned out Miss Calendar knew about the curse all along. Oh, and we have a plan to deal with the Judge.”

 

“Right,” Spike said, latching on to the least painful part of her newsflash. “The bazooka.”

 

(One of the weirdest parts of this whole time travel scene was the way certain things happened regardless of what had changed. Like the Judge. His soulless doppleganger never had rolled into town (shame – he’d been hoping to get the DeSoto back, not to mention his duster) but a demon cult had risen up to reassemble Big Blue anyway. Reassuring, in its way, since he’d had a vague worry about having to go out there and pretend to be his old evil self again for the sake of the timeline.

 

For the sake of the timeline. Sometimes he hated that phrase so intensely he wanted to go through every single dictionary in that damn library and scrawl out each of the words.)

 

“You know it’s totally creepy when you do that, don’t you?”

 

Spike smiled humourlessly. “Might’ve been mentioned a time or two.” He sighed and sat down beside her. “How is she? Buffy?”

 

Willow gave him a doleful look. “How you’d expect,” she said softly.

 

“Yeah,” Spike said, taking out his new Zippo and staring at it uncomprehendingly. “Figured.”

 

“You really couldn’t have stopped it?” Spike just clenched his jaw, flicking the Zippo open and shut, open and shut, not trusting himself to speak. _For the sake of the bleeding timeline._ “Are you at least gonna come with us? When we take on the Judge?”

 

Spike rubbed his eyes, and sat back, and stared at the ceiling, and rubbed his eyes again.

 

“No, don’t think so,” he said hoarsely. “Buffy’s strong. She can handle it.”

 

“I know, but… last time, I’m guessing she didn’t have two betrayals to cope with.” Spike froze, stricken. Willow continued, “She begged him, you know. To go fight for his soul, like you did.”

 

“What did he say?”

 

She looked back at the book, turning another page without reading it. “Nothing I’m gonna repeat.”

 

* * *

 

Giles asked him one night, angry and smelling strongly of Scotch (and after the recriminations for what his inaction had caused Buffy to suffer) why he had chosen a soul when Angelus clearly would not.

 

It seemed like an obvious thing, to him, but when he tried to explain it, he couldn’t seem to find the words, and Giles went away unsatisfied. (Funny, the unexpected sting of losing Rupert’s good opinion. Even though he acknowledged their relationship was something rather different this time through, and almost like friendship at times, it still wasn’t something he’d known he valued.)

 

He wasn’t quite getting the silent treatment the neophyte-Scoobs were sticking to the teacher, but he also wasn’t exactly anyone’s number one guy either, so when the question lingered there was plenty of quiet time alone in his crypt to mull it over. There was a simple way to find out, though.

 

“Oi, mate, truce for the night,” he yelled across the park, loudly enough that the pair of oblivious teenagers Angelus’d been stalking had time to scuttle off. When the big lug spun on him, yellow eyes flashing, Spike just waved the bottle of Jack at him and slouched down on the park bench.

 

Angelus took a moment to size things up before grinning nastily and stalking over to join him. “Sure, why not?” he said, sitting at the far end of the bench and at enough of an angle to keep an eye on Spike – a fact that pleased him no end. Seemed the stupid sod had learned his lesson after the drubbing he’d got at Spike’s hands last week.

 

“That was easier than I was expecting,” he remarked, necking the bottle before passing it over. “Then again,” he said, eyeing Angelus, “I guess you’ve already figured out I’m not going to kill you.”

 

“William,” Angelus said with a smirk. “You always were disappointingly _soft_. If it was me sent back…” He let the sentence hang suggestively.

 

“Yeah, well,” Spike said mildly, the way Angelus had relaxed minutely at his words not passing him by, “seeing as it’s your hide being saved from another beating this time, I don’t really see why you’re complaining.”

 

“So what do you want?” Angelus asked after they’d exchanged the requisite insults and properly settled in. “Something tells me this little family reunion isn’t just for old time’s sake.”

 

Spike sighed and tipped his head back on the bench, looking up at the cloudy, orange-tinted sky. “You’re right,” he said, “had something to ask you, but…”

 

“Eh, she wasn’t the best, but if you can be bothered to train her up there’s definite potential. I know you always liked a screamer.”

 

Spike punched out sideways without bothering to look, and sent the smug bastard toppling off the end of the bench. “ _Not_ about losing my soul, you utter bell-end.”

 

“No?” Angelus smirked, rolling to his feet. In a flash he was in front of Spike, dragging him up face to face by his lapels. “’Cause you know, I can really recommend it. Very-” he inhaled, breathing out with a loud _ah_ , “-invigorating.”

 

“Mine isn’t so easily detached,” Spike growled, knocking his hands loose. “What makes us so different, huh? I _know_ you still love her. Heard it from your own mouth back in my timeline.”

 

“So we did all this together in your world? Just like the good old days.” He gave a look of mocking consideration. “Hmm, mighta been fun. Shame I’ll never get to find out, what with you being such a pathetic shadow of your former self. And let’s be fair, boy, your former self wasn’t anything to get excited about.”

 

“I’ll give you something to get excited about!” Spike roared and went for him.

 

Maybe his heart wasn’t in it, though, or maybe he’d just drunk too bloody much, but after too short a time Angelus was stumbling away barely bleeding and it was Spike laid out on the ground with a set of broken ribs that felt as though they’d got rather too friendly with his lung.

 

“Spike, _my boy_ ,” Angelus spat, wiping roughly at his split lip as he backed out of range. “You really don’t get it. She made me feel like a human being. That’s not the kind of thing you _ever_ willingly go back to.”

 

Then he melted away, as was his wont, and Spike dragged himself into a sitting position. Reaching wincingly for the remainder of the Jack he replayed a conversation, long before the soul, in which he’d thanked a human girl for making him feel like a man.

 

If that was all the answer he was going to get, it had left him none the wiser.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t realise he wasn’t supposed to have saved the teacher until later on. Thing was, he’d happened to be there, being the ostracised pair that they were, and the whole point of getting the soul was to turn him into the type of vamp who didn’t hurt the damn girl – or _let_ her get hurt.

 

(Fucking ironic, when it came to it, because what he’d just done to Buffy might be the worst thing he’d _ever_ done to her. God, he’d known things had been messy but as an enemy he’d never underestimated her ability to regroup. Now he was getting to see exactly what she’d had to regroup from and it made him want to put a railroad spike through his own head – eye first so he could bloody well see it coming this time.)

 

But he’d been in a wheelchair the last time, hadn’t he? So how was he supposed to have known the details of every last kill of Angelus’s?

 

Things started to unravel fast after that though because sweet Jenny, as it happened, was the one who’d figured out how to curse the old man’s poxy soul back into him. Angelus had broken the Orb, of course, so they had to go find a new one and that would take some time, but Spike could see the shape of this piece coming together, and they were way ahead of schedule.

 

After all this time trapped in his own past, and after everything he’d done for the sake of the bloody, buggering timeline, the cold realization that _this_ was how he fucked up would’ve taken his breath away if it weren’t already gone. There was probably some metaphor hidden in there, but in his distress, Spike didn’t care to go looking for it.

 

*

 

It hadn’t occurred to him, when he’d gone off to seek his soul, that an Orb of Thesulah-making goblin clan might live right there in the caves below Sunnydale. He wondered, briefly, if he still would have gone all the way to Uganda if he’d known that was an option. Yes, he decided – he’d wanted pain and suffering, and he’d needed a victory not a curse. It was something of a satisfying realisation as he charged in axes blazing, goblins gnawing at his ankles with their glittery sharp teeth.

 

He got the Orb. Got two, in fact, as insurance. And then he promptly keeled over because _fuck_ those vicious little arseholes had really torn into him and he was bleeding from pretty much everywhere.

 

Jenny hadn’t mentioned about the whole poisoned-saliva thing, but she kind of came through in the end anyway, because Spike was lying there in the middle of the cemetery staring with bleary foreboding at the lightening sky and unable to move when Buffy came barrelling through so quickly she all but tripped over him.

 

“Here,” she gasped, forcing something into his mouth. “Miss Calendar said—and then Giles said—”

 

Spike swallowed and it tasted foul, but Buffy was there, who had barely been able to look at him the past few weeks, kneeling at his side with her little fists clenched in his t-shirt and forehead bowed to his chest, heaving for breath.

 

“Geez, Spike,” she muttered, “you know everything about everyone but goblins are a mystery to you?” He tried to pet her hair, and found that he could move again, if painfully.

 

“Like you would’ve known any better,” he scoffed weakly.

 

When she looked up at him, face glimmering in the moonlight with fresh tear tracks, he saw how unfunny she found him. “Don’t you do that to me again,” she told him, shaking him a little. “Spike, I’m serious. I couldn’t bear it if I lost you too.”

 

He felt like he’d just looked into the sun.

 

A little later, after all had apparently – amazingly, incredibly – been, well, maybe not forgiven but at least forgotten (what a generous heart his girl once had, something he’d always suspected was hidden somewhere deep down but had sometimes had cause to lose faith in) she helped him back to his crypt with an arm around his waist, and it was the closest he’d been to her since that night in the basement before they fought the First, nearly a year and a half ago by his time.

 

Five and a half years yet to come, as was.

 

God, he hated this shit sometimes. A lot of the time—

 

(“Do you love me?” she asked him softly by candlelight as she propped him back against a pillar, and for a moment he didn’t know where he was, which year, and with whom. _Tell me you love me._

 

For a moment he thought about spilling it all, didn’t quite realise what she was asking. But he saw it in her face after a moment’s study, the simple need for reassurance after all the badness lately. She was asking about their friendship, and he found he mostly didn’t mind.

 

“I do,” he told her, with what he was not afraid to admit was a bit of a watery smile. “Buffy, I never wanted to hurt you. There’s no apology I can give that would-”

 

The hug she gave him was so sweet he couldn’t help but draw her closer for a moment, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple.)

 

—just not right then.

 

(Until she started bubbling about re-doing the soul curse in the morning; then he came back to earth.)

 

* * *

 

It took the whole gang, including Kendra, Spike and Angel, to help defeat Acathla this time. Angel was crucial, as that funny little demon Whistler had said he would be, but he ended up leaving anyway, because the problem remained that his soul wasn’t secure, and when he’d asked Spike despairingly what he should do, Spike had just told him what had happened last time and hoped that he was capable of drawing his own conclusions. To the best of his knowledge, it was a bit earlier than before, but at least, he figured, Buffy would have him to help in any upcoming fights the quiffy-haired git should’ve been there for.

 

And because he was trying to learn from his mistakes these days, this time he did his best to warn the girl and prepare her for what was coming. Only problem was, his was just one voice in a full sodding Greek chorus telling her to keep her distance from her lover boy. He even tried speaking with Joyce, for whatever good that did.

 

Buffy turned to him, though, after Angel walked away, her face naked with emotion in a way that still shook him to his boots, eyes brimming, and told him, “I hate you for being right.”

 

He cursed himself all over again for that, because damn it, he wasn’t the Slayer’s guardian, he fucking _loathed_ being the adult, and he was doing his absolute best for her but this whole selfless thing was still new to his repertoire and somehow the soul wasn’t the manual to the light side of the force he’d been envisioning. When even Whistler had been surprised to see him it wasn’t like he had anyone who could really give him advice, and everything he did just seemed to cause her pain. Christ, he really did deserve that railroad spike. Felt like it was already lodged in his chest.

 

*

 

It took a bit of time for things to recover between them again after that, but here they were anyway a few weeks later, sitting side by side on a clear night, legs dangling over the edge of a mausoleum as they took a breather from a busy patrol. The thought kept circling his mind like a persistent insect that he really, really didn’t deserve it, not so easily, but this girl at his side never stopped surprising him.

 

Buffy kept glancing at him, like she had something to say, but the tranquillity of the moment made him feel unhurried, and so he just sat and waited her out.

 

“Giles told me something last year,” she said eventually, “and I – I know things have been better between us lately, but I still…”

 

When she didn’t look like she was going to continue, Spike prompted her, “What did he say?”

 

“He said you forgive someone because they need it, not necessarily because they deserve it, and I just realised – you know, earlier today – that I never told you.”

 

He stared at her, brow scrunched. “Told me what?”

 

“That I forgive you, dummy. For not telling me about Angel.” She paused and gave him a wry smile. “And for telling me.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah.” She bumped his shoulder. “I figure you’ve suffered enough.”

 

It was moments like these when he wanted to sweep her into his arms and smother her in kisses, wanted to fall at her feet and worship her until the end of days, wanted to shake her and demand whether she knew what she was doing to him. Wanted to ask her how she could forgive him when she barely even knew the depth of the wrongs he’d done her. But she was smiling at him a little tentatively, and it almost broke his heart how beautiful she was in that moment.

 

“Well – thanks,” he said gruffly. Buffy rested her head on his shoulder and he thought again that it was all too easy but he went with it.

 

“So Willow and Xander have been talking about going stag together to prom, all three of us,” she said after he’d had a pleasant few moments of listening to her breathe.

 

“Yeah?” he asked, genuinely surprised. “You don’t have a date, Summers? I thought-”

 

“I had a thought, too – why don’t _we_ go together?” She raised her head to look at him, and must have misinterpreted his expression as she hurried to add, “Not like… you know. Just as friends. I thought it’d be fun.”

 

“I, uh…” Spike sputtered a bit and had to clear his throat before continuing. “Do I have to wear a tux?”

 

“Yes,” Buffy said, bursting into an impish grin. “You’re, like, a million years old, don’t tell me you’ve never worn formal wear before.”

 

“That’s not the point!” he protested, “A vamp’s got a reputation to uphold.” But it was a losing game, and she seemed to know it. The thought rose up, how wrong this was, how young she still was – and how very much he still loved her. Angel had had this, he knew – this blazing girl with the heart of a lion and a sweetness that sometimes seemed to overflow. Angel had had this and squandered it – tried to torture it out of her in punishment – but somehow at the end of it all she wasn’t broken. He didn’t know – didn’t like to speculate – exactly how much his being here had influenced things, but it was a nice thought just then to imagine that in some small way he might have been a mitigating influence.

 

And anyway, Angel was gone and Spike was still there, and it was him Buffy was smiling and arguing with, eyes dancing and lighting up the dark. The bitterness of the last two-plus years fell away all at once, the envy fell away, and it suddenly sunk in that he’d survived, Angel was gone, the world hadn’t ended, reality hadn’t imploded, and Buffy wanted _him_ to be her date to prom. The next few weeks were bound to be tricky, being that he knew fuck all about the mayor and his minions, but the whole year had been like that, and once it was finally done and out of the way they’d be into the summer before college which was practically terra firma, and maybe, just maybe, he could start having some fun.


End file.
